User talk:Eag227

Maria Sachs
Please explain how the image alt description ("alt"), which is a requirement, is affecting SEO.

--Nemesis63 (talk) 18:08, 3 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Assuming that by "SEO" you mean "search engine optimisation", you have misunderstood the nature of Wikipedia. Editing to promote a subject is not permitted, and continuing to do so will lead to being blocked from editing. JamesBWatson (talk) 20:27, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

As can be seen through my response to Nemesis63 on his talk page, the edit was not intended in any way to "promote" the subject. It was simply meant to prevent the alt image description from displaying upon a standard search of the subject's name via a search engine. As I'm sure you'd agree, the alt image description is not in any way helpful to a user if displayed in search engine results. I am not aware of any other way to remedy this without removing the alt image description. The edit was not performed in bad faith, or to affect the content of the article, and I invite you to rectify the concerns that prompted the edit in another way. Eag227 (talk) 23:19, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
 * OK, it seems that "promote" was the wrong word, and I apologise. However, when editing a Wikipedia article, the only concern should be what is best for that article, and how the article is edited should not be shaped to suit what happens in external search engines. JamesBWatson (talk) 13:58, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

That's fair, though I would distinguish between editing article content and editing something like an alt image description. Use of an alt image description is far from universal (see, for example, main pictures for "black forest cake" or "Albert Einstein"). In this particular case, the alt image description was doubly problematic, since her Wikipedia search result was essentially highlighting her descriptive physical features instead of pertinent, official information. This is a reasonable concern accounting for the way in which most users access a page, not intended in any way to bias or distort the effective dissemination of knowledge. Eag227 (talk) 14:26, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Conflict of Interest
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